


Baths and Bedtime Stories

by AngeNoir



Series: Yuletide 2013 Gifts [1]
Category: Black Jewels - Anne Bishop
Genre: Family, Family Feels, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 21:35:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was tired, drained, and upon finding his sons in his study, demanding a ruling on some childish game they had played earlier in the day, he was tempted to send them away.</p><p>But they were his sons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baths and Bedtime Stories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eirenne Saijima (ladypoetess)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladypoetess/gifts).



Saetan stared down at his two children and desperately tried to remember that he was the Lord of Hell. He didn’t have to mediate these kinds of competitions if he didn’t want to. He could easily turn them both over to Tersa, or even Manny. Anything to not have to deal with his two boisterous offspring right this very minute.

But they were there, two tiny, angry faces, each one so sure they were right. With a heavy sigh, he rubbed the bridge of his nose and then looked at his son and mirror, Saetan.

“Alright, Saetan, what happened?”

“Why does _he_ get to go first!” Lucivar yelled.

Saetan shot Lucivar a look. Grumbling, Lucivar subsided, glowering at his brother.

His tiny son’s chest puffed out even as he said in a rush of words, “Mama said not to go out past the garden so we didn’t but we wanted to race so we went to the very edge but then Lucivar flew and that’s cheating because I can’t fly and Lucivar said I went past the garden but I _didn’t_.”

“He did so!” Lucivar shouted.

Swallowing, Saetan turned to Lucivar. “Alright, what happened, Lucivar?”

“Daemon _went past the garden_ and Tersa said not to but _he did_ and flying is _not_ cheating Daemon’s just a sore loser who can’t go fast!”

“I am not!”

“Are too! Sore loser!”

Saetan Daemon launched himself at Lucivar, and the two boys went tumbling head over heels. Grumbling under his breath, Saetan waded in, dragging the two apart and holding them each by the back of their respective shirts.

“Now, listen here, the both of you. Lucivar, flying can be cheating sometimes. In a fight, it’s fine; in a friendly competition with your brother, it is _not_ fine. Saetan, if Tersa told you not to go past the garden, you aren’t allowed to go past the garden. No exceptions. Why aren’t you in bed?”

The two boys looked so guilty that Saetan immediately realized they were _supposed_ to be in bed and had probably snuck out from someone who was frantically looking for them throughout the house and wasn’t expecting them to be in Saetan’s study.

Well, if it was Manny, she’d put off searching his study to the last. He made her uncomfortable, even when he tried not to.

The door opened behind him, and he turned with one boy in each hand to see Tersa standing there. She was so fragile, so carefully composed, trying to hold herself together. She was beautiful, and so young. He felt his heart soften even as her gaze traveled to her son first and then her son’s brother next.

“Manny’s been looking for them,” she murmured quietly. “Apparently, two little boys didn’t show up for their bath.”

“We were waiting for you,” Saetan Daemon said in a small voice.

“You promised us a story!” Lucivar broke in.

Saetan looked at them and then at Tersa. She smiled at him. “You were missed today,” she said, stating the obvious.

Heaving a sigh, he set them both on their feet. “Dirty boys don’t get stories, but if you go get washed, I’ll see what I can do.”

Lucivar was first out, bare feet pounding on the wooden floors, but his other son lingered, clutching at Saetan’s hand. “Papa?”

“Yes, Saetan?” Saetan said.

“I want wings, Papa. I want to fly, too. Lucivar gets to fly.”

Tersa’s face became distressed, and Saetan lifted his namesake up into his arms, placing a warm hand on Tersa’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go see if there’s anything the cook can put together for me, Tersa?” he asked gently. “I’ll take care of Saetan, see to it that the boys get put to bed.”

Hesitantly, she nodded, and disappeared from the doorway. Shifting Saetan Daemon in his arms, Saetan brushed back locks of black hair from those too-expressive eyes. His soft-hearted boy with the spine of steel.

“So you want to fly?” he said quietly.

His namesake nodded hard, head bobbing. “Lucivar always gets to fly. And learn sticks. I want to too.”

“You know how there are many different races, Saetan? How you are part Hayllian and part Dhemlan?”

The little boy nodded, more slowly this time.

“Lucivar is an Eyrien. They are born with wings. It’s something that makes them special – like your ears make you special. Lucivar doesn’t have pointed ears.”

“But Lucivar can _fly_ ,” Saetan Daemon repeated, and he sounded heartbroken. “I can’t play with him in the sky.”

Saetan swallowed, and began to make his way out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom the boys used. “No, you can’t,” he said roughly. “Sometimes, you are left on the ground while your brother flies. It can hurt, to know you can’t be with him up there. But remember that he must land at some point, and he will want a good friend and brother waiting for him.”

That small face scrunched up in confusion and distress. “Papa, that doesn’t make sense.”

Saetan chuckled, running a hand over Saetan Daemon’s head and cupped his son to his shoulder as he opened up the bathroom door.

There, Manny bent over a tub with a naked and wiggling Lucivar. She turned at the sound of the door opening and let out an exasperated sigh.

“There you are, Daemon, lad. You need to get washed and scrubbed so that you can head to bed.”

Saetan placed his namesake down on the ground and watched as Saetan Daemon began clawing his way free of his clothes. “You know,” Saetan said contemplatively, “his name is Saetan.”

Manny shot him an unamused look. “If you think I’ll be hollering that name out the backyard when your fool son runs past the garden for the fifth time in the same week, you think wrong,” she informed him tartly. “Daemon is his middle name.”

Grumbling under his breath, Saetan left his children in Manny’s hands and made his way down to the kitchen. Tersa, though broken, held with all her strength onto the small bit of sanity she had left, and he was pleasantly surprised to find that she had not only gotten together a plate of food for him but had poured out wine and was sitting, waiting, for him. She alternated between comfortable and nervous with him, and while he understood why she, more than anyone, had reason to fear him and his male scent, it still put him on edge. No female here could stand to be around him, and all of them acted as if he was moments away from tearing at them and taking his pleasure from them. It was both insulting and infuriating, and a Warrior Prince constantly irritated was a Prince not far from the killing edge at any given moment.

Still, he took her presence as a sign of her willingness to be present while he ate, and picked a small, inconsequential point of his day to discuss with her. She replied haltingly, but as the minutes passed she grew more relaxed and at ease.

He had polished off the platter and had been sitting with her a while before the sound of little feet pounding down the hallway made the both of them pause.

Tersa smiled a little. “They’re ready for their story. They don’t like sleeping before knowing you came home, you know.”

“I know,” Saetan said, unable to stop the feeling of pride blooming in his chest. He may be old, may have lost much of his former glory, but he had his sons and they were worth it all. Rising from the table and gathering his dishes, he glanced back at Tersa. “You know, you could join us for story time.”

She stared at him a moment, frozen.

“The boys love you, too, Tersa,” he murmured, passing by her and pressing a kiss on her forehead. “We’d welcome you for story-time.”

And when, half an hour later, deep into his story with Lucivar yawning under one arm and Saetan Daemon staring up at him with sleepy eyes under his other, Tersa came in and sat in the rocking chair in the corner, Saetan took a moment to soak the moment in. This, he thought warmly, fingers caressing the unruly hair on his wild son and the silky hair of his too-proper son, this was what he had wished for in a family all those years ago. This is what he had hoped for, and what he had prayed for from the darkness.

Cuddling his sons closer, he moved towards the climax of his story and listened to the soft rock of the chair, the lights low and the setting intimate. Just him and his family.

**Author's Note:**

> I have to say that remembering that Saetan always called Daemon by Daemon's first name made writing this highly complicated. I hope it makes sense and I didn't mix names up too much.


End file.
